Coronavirus impact on the News Industry (and Journalism)

Early 2019. Saving Journalism. Already.

Journalism, the cure to media distrust.

As we wrote previously, quality journalism respecting privacy and transparency, delivering the brand values of the media they work for is the solution to the current distrust, driving to misinformation and, ultimately, to violence.

“Journalism is hugely important all the time, but it’s probably never been more important than it is right now, when people really need critical information about what’s going on,” said Sandberg. “That means that those businesses have to be supported. So we’re doing it by spending money and we’re doing it by granting money.”

Why it matters: Local news was already facing dire strains in the United States. The coronavirus and a pending recession could push the industry into near collapse at a time when people need access to local news and information more than ever before.

More impacted.

While tech giants like Google, Facebook and others are expected to lose billions of advertising dollars this year thanks to economic disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the losses aren’t expected to cripple these companies.

The bottom line: “With the rapid drop in general ad revenue, overall revenue is dropping fast while costs and need are rising. This is on top of decades of financial stress. There is no fat in the system,” says Chavern.